


Things You Said

by vox_ex



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Emotions, F/F, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Kara Danvers Needs a Hug, Lena Luthor Needs a Hug, like a lot of them, spoiler they get hugs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:55:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24844924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vox_ex/pseuds/vox_ex
Summary: A series of conversations between Kara and the people in her life.Chapter 5 - Things you said when I was crying (Lena POV)...Lena saves Kara and a part of herself along the way.
Relationships: Alex Danvers & Kara Danvers, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 72
Kudos: 344





	1. Things you said under the stars and in the grass (Kara/Lena)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer... I did my best with the accuracy of the facts and theory bits, but I am not a particle physicist by any means, I work in human science only :)

Kara lets her fingers run along the blades of grass beneath her. She feels the way they bend and fold and give way to her touch. The night is quiet as it can be with the city stretched out in front of them. Beside her, Lena lies with one arm folded underneath her head, and her eyes trained on the sky above them. She lifts her hand and traces a silhouette among the scattering of stars and Kara follows the movement and the gentle lilt of Lena's voice as she gives each one a new name and a new story to add to those of the ghosts and gods she has carried with her from her past. 

They're just far enough away here. It's just dark enough to see the stars with the faint glow of everything still within reach. And even if they both know they could look at the sky from anywhere else, Lena likes to look at it from here. She had told her once that when she looks at the lights of the city from here — almost indistinguishable from the faintest lights of the universe beyond it — she remembers how small a part of it all she really is, and that there is comfort for her in that kind of smallness, in the ability to lie there with Kara and for it to be just them for just that moment in the face of everything else that surrounds them. 

Kara looks at the sky and how full of stars it seems. She remembers the things Lena has told her lying here. That there are 300 billion stars in this galaxy. That there are 200 billion galaxies in the universe. Things that must have been knowable and yet been inconsequential when she was a child on Krypton because they never talked about things like that. But they never talked about the immensity of space the way humans do either. But here, Lena would speak with her for hours about quantum mechanics and particle theory and supersymmetry with a reverence she has always been in awe of. Because Kara was never taught the beauty that can lie in an unsolvable proof or an elegant theorem, and she is certain that only the most human of endeavors would have found that the vibrations from black holes colliding harmonize with Elvis Presley. But again and again, Lena has shown her the best of humanity's efforts in the pursuit of such things, of trying to turn all this vastness into something knowable and beautiful. 

But for as many stars as there are in the sky, Kara knows how empty space can truly be, that the Sun is just one of those 300 billion stars in a galaxy that is spinning and expanding, and that almost everything is moving farther and farther away from everything else every second. She knows that between it all, all the stars, and planets, and galaxies, there are distances unfathomable to those who look to the sky every night and think they can count them and name them and share their stories. She knows because she's seen it. The vastness of space stretched all around her, everything at its distance still spinning, still moving farther and farther apart and her at its center, nothing but alone. 

Alone. 

Empty. 

Lena's voice pervades her thoughts again. 

A discussion from weeks ago about the dark matter research and axions and a team in Italy needing her help. 

Too often, it's too hard to equate what she knows into the terms humans use. To reverse engineer her understanding of things in a way that makes sense for the both of them. But they can theorize together still. Both having found in each other something they thought they lost. 

She remembers the frustration that grew in her voice when she spoke about the evasiveness of nothingness. Kara had to hold in the laugh that threatened at how annoyed she quickly became during their conversation. 

"But there should be more out there," Lena's hand gestured to the sky above them. flung open as if to command the obviousness of her words, "so much more!" 

And Kara had tried to reply with as much seriousness as she could manage, but trying to ignore the adorable pout that was now firmly in place was nearly impossible.

"Roughly 95%." 

But then Lena just turned her head to look at her, hands falling dramatically to the ground. 

And Kara just shrugged her shoulders, failing finally to conceal the smile she had been holding back.

"What, I listen when you talk." 

Lena squinted at her skeptically. 

"You all have theorized that the universe is made up of 68% dark energy which can't be seen and 27% dark matter which also can't be seen, so," she gestured up to the sky, "about 95% more stuff should be up there."

Kara finally turned to look at Lena, who she was glad to see was, in fact, smiling back. 

"Right."

She still reached over and smacked Kara on the arm for good measure, though. 

"So, how do you find it?" 

But even in the levity of that moment, a part of her had wanted to tell her that it wouldn't matter if they ever found those particles. That if they found them or named them or proved them in some perfect equation that in they wouldn't make the universe slow down or stop spinning, that the galaxies and the stars would still be just as far away and that space would still be just as cold and just as quiet and just as empty and she would have been just as alone for all those years. 

But she thinks that after all these years here and after all the things that Lena has told her lying on the grass beneath these stars that she believes more and more in the beauty of science rather than just its purpose, that she believes more and more now in many things that she could only have ever hoped for at all. 

Kara runs her fingers along the blades of grass again, reaching out until they grasp onto Lena's hand, her thumb running back and forth over her knuckles as if they hadn't already memorized the pattern. 

The ground beneath them feels solid, but she knows it's mostly empty space, full of atoms and nuclei surrounded by nothing but the forces holding them together. Their strength coming from the work that it takes to keep them together and that prove they're there at all.

She takes a breath. Hopes Lena will remember the words she said under these stars as well as she does. 

"5 percent is still a lot, you know." She keeps her eyes still on the sky. "I mean 5 percent is all these stars, and it's earth and Argo, and it was Krypton. It's every one of those buildings down there and every one of these blades of grass — she tightens her grip on Lena's hand — and it's you, and it's me. It's us."

She lets the words have their moment, allows Lena to be the one who turns onto her side, their hands still held together, and places them over her heart. 

She thinks again about how you can't see dark matter or dark energy. How you only know it's there because of how it affects the universe. 

Because the ground beneath them is solid. 

Because the stars above them are bright. 

Because the galaxy around them is expanding. 

She thinks about how you can't see love. How you only know it's there because of how it makes you feel.

She thinks of the strength of the things that have held them together against the weight of the things that have tried to pull them apart. 

And then Lena leans in closer still, their bodies angled together, and their hands still pressed between them as she whispers into the only space left.

"It's more than enough."

And Kara thinks not for the first time that of all the things in the universe she has seen humans try to prove, love is by far most beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, let me know what you all think. 
> 
> I had seen these prompts over on Tumblr, but I figured I'd make a place for them here too. Come yell at me in the box below or on Tumblr @vox-ex. 
> 
> Here's a link to the post with the prompts. I can't always be sure when I can write but feel free to let me know if you see any you would like to see me have a go at. 
> 
> https://vox-ex.tumblr.com/post/621435885984104448/send-me-a-pairing-and-one-of-these-and-ill-write


	2. Things you whispered in my ear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena and Kara finally stop Lex but still have to try and save each other

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't get to write as much as I want too, but little by little I hope to keep adding to this. Thanks to you all for reading.

The weight above Kara is heavy, heavier than anything she has ever carried. She isn't sure exactly how it happened. Like all things that happen quickly, it happened all at once, happened because Lena had promised to stop her brother and Kara had promised to always protect Lena. And now, they are pressed together underneath the weight of those promises to which they were fated. 

Lena's hands pull against the front of Kara's suit, her fingers digging into the edges as she tries to pry away the dented sigil from her chest, to try to fix the damage underneath. But Kara can feel all the things Lena's hands can't reach, can feel the pain and the cold, and the way it's getting harder to breathe. 

Kara's gaze shifts from Lena's hands up to her face. Her helmet is lying broken somewhere on the ground, having been knocked off and scattered among the rocks and concrete. 

She tries to get Lena to look at her. 

She needs Lena to look at her. 

There are things she needs to say. 

Kara shifts the weight on her shoulders. The slab of concrete settling further down on them. Lena's hands still suddenly at the movement, steadying themselves against Kara's chest as if she is trying to push back, to add whatever strength she has even if she must know it won't work. 

And then finally, finally, Lena looks into her eyes. 

And she is scared. 

And she is angry. 

And Kara hates it. 

"If I curl myself around you..." 

But Lena cuts her off, her hands turn to fists, and she knows this is one last fight they will have. "No." 

She tries again. "Lena..."

Lena hits her fist against Kara's chest, dust falling down onto both of them. "No." 

"Lena, please, I don't know how much longer I can hold this up, I-I don't know how close the others are..." 

There is no space between them. Kara's back bearing the load of everything above them and Lena shielded underneath her. It's the closest they have been in months. And Rao, how desperately she wants to hold her one more time. 

"No," And it's quieter this time, still no less defiant, but more resigned, "It's okay, Kara. It's going to be okay."

Lena lifts her hand to Kara's cheek. 

"I can't," Lena whispers, and Kara lets her head fall toward her touch as the words trail away, "I can't..."

But Kara knows the rest.

I can't save you.

I can't let you go.

She has said them too many times to too many people. 

She feels Lena's hand drift down following along the edges of her jaw, lingering as long as her quiet refrain and the chaos around them allow it.

"…"I-I-mm s-sorry". And they are words meant just for them, but not just for this moment. They are one last chance Kara has at forgiveness.

And she can hear Lena crying then, the soft sound resonating in her head. 

She can see the ghost of tears that trace lines in the dust that covers them both. 

She wonders if they ever could have loved each other without all this agony.

She thinks of how she had tried. 

She thinks of how the world had always failed them. 

But maybe they were meant to have loved each other despite all the pain. Maybe that was the ending she hadn't seen. 

And maybe it's cruel, but she lets herself imagine what it could be like. 

She closes her eyes, and she imagines the movements in her head, a steady hand on the back of Lena's neck pulling her down close, the flex of fingers threading through her hair. She imagines the press of lips and the frantic wanting for more. And she imagines the words unwavering as she tells her finally that she loves her. 

She imagines all these things with one of Lena's hands still curled around the torn metal pressing into her chest and the world above them, pressing down. 

She imagines them until Lena's thumb shifts just enough to trace the corner of her mouth. 

Imagines them until Lena lifts herself up and she feels what it is to know both agony and love in equal measure when Lena kisses her and she can taste both their tears on her lips. 

And then it's all at once real. 

And it isn't a loud proclamation of love.

But when Lena whispers in her ear. 

"You mean too much to me, Kara Zor-el. Don't you dare make me lose you too." 

It's enough to believe that the universe isn't done with them yet. 

It's enough that she is able to carry the weight of another promise until her shoulders finally feel as weightless as her heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, let me know what you all think! Kudos and comments are always welcome and very much appreciated. 
> 
> Come yell at me in the box below or on Tumblr @vox-ex.


	3. Things you said right before goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things you said right before goodbye
> 
> Kara and Lena finally stop Lex but everything between them is still just too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my head, this takes place after they finally stop Lex together but there are just too many things that have happened for things to be okay right away. Basically, Kara and Lena losing each other to find each other.

"I can't."  
"I'm sorry."  
"It's just too much."  
"You just need to let me go."  
"It's better if we just let each other go."

The syllables grew longer and longer as the hope that reached between them stretched farther and farther apart until it drew so far it turned into silence.

Kara tried to breathe, but it just seemed to go in and out of her, slow and meaningless.

Lena's expression had changed from one of anger to one of grief.

Then there was only one word left, a quiet, whispered, unanswered..."goodbye."

And then she was gone. 

After everything, she was just gone. 

And Kara had just stood at her door, her feet weighed down by her too heavy heart, and for once, she wasn't fast enough to reach her. 

Lena leaves on a Thursday. Lena leaves on a Thursday, and it's cold and grey, and it's everything a day like that should be. For everyone else, the city is quiet, but for Kara, she can't let go of the sound of Lena's voice, of the words she said right before goodbye, "It's better if we just let each other go." She wonders if there are other words Lena had held onto. Words she had wanted to say but had been too scared of. She wonders if she isn't the only one who had just still been too afraid of the things left unsaid between them. On better days, she lets that wonder turn to hope. But on other days, it breaks her heart to think that they will never see each other again. And on the days that feel impossible, there is the certainty she has that Lena would be happier that way. And it's those days that keep her from the sound of Lena's heartbeat, that remind her of the promise she made to protect her even if it has to be from herself. 

Friday comes soon and Monday follows and after it, another Thursday. Each day slowly follows as if trying to return to what came before, but like everything that happened with Lena, watching her go had happened so suddenly, so completely, so irreversibly that it never can. There are still better days and bad days and days that feel impossible, but the better days have more hope and the bad days have less certainty, and eventually, she lets herself listen for the sound of Lena's heartbeat again. It's quieter than it had been before, but still the same, still there — in the same spot as hers. Lena's words come back again, _"It's better if we just let each other go,"_ and she hates herself that she is either still too selfish or foolish enough not to. 

Lena leaves on a Thursday. Lena leaves on a Thursday, but it's a Tuesday when there's a knock at Kara's door. Soft and hesitant, its echo barely reaching across the space it's meant to cross, but the heartbeat that accompanies is unmistakable. Kara finds her own heart beating in time with the frantic rhythm as she steps closer, unsure if her feet ever really touch the floor as she wonders briefly if, after all this time, this Lena will feel more like a ghost or a dream. But when Kara sees her standing there in the doorway, it's as if she forgot what she looked like, as if all those memories she had of her never existed, because all the sudden she can't remember the last time she stood in that same spot, or wore that same coat, or wrung her hands together in that same way — it's as if every other moment was replaced with just this one. Kara barely looks at her face, misses the dimple that pulls at the corner of her cheek as she says her name, her focus ruined by the little details in the creases of her hands and small freckle at the base of her neck. She jolts in surprise at the fingers that land on her wrist. The connection cutting through her skin, and her breath catching in her throat as she sees Lena's eyes for the first time. 

"Lena," Kara says, a soft smile fighting its way through a mix of disbelief and heartbreak, her hand reaching up to touch Lena's cheek, to force this image of her into its place with all the others that are slowly coming back. She closes her eyes for a second, so Lena doesn't see the tears that sting against her lids. Her face reddens when she notices how close they are, how much she missed touching someone like this — how much she missed Lena like this. 

"I don't know what to say, I-" Lena says it as a question, and Kara can still feel her fingers against her wrist, the slight movement making her feel whole again in a way she hasn't for months. And Kara thinks that's okay because there are so many things she wants to say, things she should have said months ago, years ago, but she can't get the words out. Words to say, I miss you. Words to say again, I'm sorry. Words to say, I never stopped believing in you. Words to say, I love you. She stares at their hands and tries to think of how to make her voice come out. Hates that for every word they used to say goodbye, she can't find one now to tell Lena to stay — wonders if they could ever be as good at loving each other as she feared they were at losing each other. 

She hears Lena's voice in her head. 

__

__

_I can't.  
I'm sorry.  
It's just too much.  
You just need to let me go.  
It's better if we just let each other go._

But before it can get to goodbye, she feels the barest pull against her wrist, sees green eyes painted bright with tears but also something else, and with every bit of hope she had let herself hold onto, she pulls Lena into her arms, hands tangling together in each other as she turns to press a kiss to the side of her head, "I couldn't let you go," and Lena answers her with another kiss, the soft press of lips and a quiet confession of her own..."I couldn't let you go either."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, let me know what you all think! Kudos and comments are always welcome and very much appreciated. 
> 
> Come yell at me in the box below or on Tumblr @vox-ex.


	4. Things you said in the dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Danvers sisters moment I wish we got in 4x21 after Alex remembers and Kara almost dies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to write some things as an end of thank you to everyone who everyone who still comes back to read what I write even though I often go radio silent. 
> 
> Hope everyone is staying safe.

Home was one of the first words Kara learned on Earth.

With Kal's steady hands on her shoulders, he uttered it first in broken Kryptonese and then in harsh English.

_Zehdh._

_Home._

But they were just words, and the ground beneath her feet just a place — somewhere she could learn to call home, but nowhere that felt like it.  
Kara looks over the water at the back of the house as she thinks about the last time she and Alex were here.

_'I remember thinking I would never feel at home on Earth._  
_I still don't, in a way.'_

The air is colder now than it was then, and the sky too dark to tell the difference between the stars and their reflection. The wood creaks underneath her hands as she leans forward, worn under the weight of the years it has weathered but not weak enough to give way.

She thinks how fragile places are. How in our hearts they feel unbreakable but that we lose a little bit of them each time we leave them and our absence doesn't stop them from fading away. She wonders how long it takes to lose them completely.

She thinks of Krypton, how it still sits low in the sky, a ghost made of light caught in the passage of time.

She thinks of Argo and the different version of herself it is meant for, the one who doesn't exist anymore.

She closes her eyes as Red daughters' voice echoes in her head.

 _'You have all these things._ _You think they will make you whole?'_

"Are you cold?"

Her eyes open, starlight blinking back to fade into the night sky as Alex's voice cuts heavy through the layers of thought that have settled around her, and even though Kara can see the puff of air in front of her, she shakes her head, hiding the way she had pulled her cape around her shoulders just a bit tighter.

Alex's hands grip the railing next to hers. Fingers, opening, and closing — hesitating.

Dipping her head, Kara turns her face toward the sky, her lips slightly pursed, defiant in her effort not to worry her sister any more than she already is.

"I'm not cold."

"Then why are you shivering?"

"It's...

She looks at her hands, shivering no, shaking maybe, trembling a little probably. The adrenaline finally wearing off from almost dying and all that as the bit of sunlight she managed to absorb had only been enough to keep her heart beating. The rest of her would have to wait until morning.

"I'm cold." A laugh, bitter and full of pain, escapes her lips.

"I'll get you a blanket."

"I'm fine. I can handle the cold," she says, forcing a smile.

"Okay, but-"

"Alex, it's okay." She throws an arm around her shoulders, tucking her into her side and pulling her cape around both of them. "I'm fine."

"Just because your cape used to be a blanket doesn't mean it counts, you know." Alex leans into Kara. "What are you doing out here?"

"Just thinking," Kara says softly.

"Kara," Alex starts, but her voice drifting as she places her head on her shoulder.

Kara's eyes shift from the sky to her sister. Can see the guilt that has settled on her shoulders and the fear that she still has in her eyes ever since she dragged her out of the woods with blood on her hands and a lifetime of memories warring with each other in her head, and she thinks that if she could, she would ask J'ohn to take just that one back from her. So it's all she can do to take the words from Alex before she can give them to Kara herself.

"I'm sorry."

"Why?" Alex asks, confusion etched into the shadows that have settled under her eyes.

Kara leans back, tucking her hair behind her ear, fingers grazing past the still healing skin of her cheek.

It'll be gone soon.

It's always gone soon.

"When I saw you lying there." It comes out in a long breath that Alex tries to release as she speaks.

"Alex," Kara tries.

But she shakes her head, her voice cracking, "I... I made a promise, a promise to protect you."

"You did. I'm still here," Kara says, voice breaking just a little in the way she always feels while she waits for her body to be put back together.

Alex takes in a ragged breath and then pushes it out as if it's been held in her lungs for far too long.

"I know. I. But there was a moment where I didn't, where — where you weren't."

Kara looks at her sister's hands twisting in the fabric of her cape, Alex had spent so long carefully helping her clean away the blood from her face, but her own hands still held some its reminder as if in a kind of unconscious penance.

"I'm still here," Kara repeats.

"I... I..." A rough sob escapes in her attempt at a response. "I kept asking for you to get, up but..." She swallows down the tears and starts over. "You thought you were alone." She looks up, her cheeks wet with tears.

_'You can't go now._  
_I remember everything._  
_Kara, we're here, we're here._  
_We're here together.'_

"And I thought, I thought maybe you'd given up because you thought you were alone and... I'm so sorry."

And the pain on her face hurts Kara more than any of her own as Alex desperately tries to wipe at her eyes with her hand.

"Hey, hey." Kara reaches out and grabs Alex's hand, pressing it against her cheek instead.

"I know you say I never listen to you, but I heard you, okay, I heard you, and I knew you were there."

Alex forces out a broken laugh, full of weary relief finally let go. "yeah," she says, squeezing Kara's hand. "probably just because Mom was there, though."

And it's Kara's turn to laugh, pulling her sister in fully into her then, ignoring every but of discomfort left and grateful for the chance to hold her just a little tighter.

Kara looks up at the clouds, at the sky, at the darkness covering so much of it that it's hard to see anything now, and if she didn't know it so well, everything around her would seem as indistinguishable from every other corner of the Earth she has come to know.

But it isn't. 

It's home.

"Alex," she says, voice hoarse and rough, finally feeling her body starting to give in to its exhaustion.

Alex pulls back, straightening her shoulders. "What is it?" She asks, already accepting a little more of Kara's weight.

"I knew you'd remember."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, let me know what you all think! Kudos and comments are always welcome and very much appreciated. 
> 
> Come yell at me in the box below or on Tumblr @vox-ex.


	5. Things you said when I was crying (Lena POV)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena saves Kara and a part of herself along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> based on some [wonderfully angsty and also just plain beautiful art](https://jennywebbyart.tumblr.com/post/642136203166203905/she-didnt-need-to-think-about-it-lena-knew-that) by jennywebbyart on Tumblr.

To fall.

To descend freely by the force of gravity.

There was a time before Newton when gravity was nothing more than a feeling of graveness, of solemness, when we believed objects only fell because of the weight that they carried with them— a time when Lena could have stretched her arm out toward Kara's falling form and not known the name of the thing that was trying to take her away from her.

But Lena did know, and still, she chose to try and bend the will of the laws of the universe to keep her.

Lena had watched as everything fell away from beneath her, as the slow descent of a sloping plane gave way first to a flash of rock and sand that marked the edge of the cliff, and then to nothing but air as she stared down at the sea and all that was within it. What did it feel like when she was falling? Did it matter? All that mattered was Kara. Kara who was in her arms, Kara whose blood was spreading through the fabric of her suit, Kara, who she would always choose.

Over logic. Over science. Over self-preservation.

The water parts with a hard crack, and it's like the whole world falls away in its wake.

Everything she felt only a moment ago is gone — everything but the weight of Kara in her arms.

She wants to take deep breaths but knows there is nothing there. But there is pain, and the hollowness in her chest grows as the water lurches again, pulling her up, her arms tightening against the current that tries to pull them apart — that threatens to take Kara away from her again.

And then, when the water finally settles, almost gently, Kara's tattered cape tangles around them, and it still feels like falling.

But something about being this close to Kara always feels a little bit like falling.

She holds on tighter again as she feels Kara's arms float upwards.

And then, for a second, everything seems still, as if the universe is still deciding what to do with them. But then the water begins to get darker still, tinted by streaks of red stretching up toward the surface, the sun becoming nothing more than the faintest rays of light.

And they're falling again.

She thinks of how she once stood on the shore of the lake where her mother died and tried to imagine how cold the water would have been, what the silt and rocks would have felt like under her feet. 

She imagined all the things she could have done.

She imagined all the things that would have changed.

She thinks of how she had taken off her shoes and waded into the water just far enough to let it come to her knees, just high enough to remember but not near enough to let herself be forgiven.

But it isn't forgiveness she's asking for now.

It's a second chance.

To save Kara like she couldn't save her mother.

Like she couldn't save Jack.

And maybe something else too, something more, something she couldn't yet admit to.

She shifts herself around Kara, trying to lift them both up, her arms moving from around her chest to her waist instead, the blood on her hands mattering less and less the deeper into the water they fall even as it spreads more and more.

Kara feels heavy in her arms, the weight of everything above them pushing down, the pain of running out of oxygen pushing in.

She kicks against the water and against the pain. The pain of watching her mother die, the pain of fighting against the darkness of her name, the pain of so many lies and so many broken promises — the pain of all the people she's lost. 

She tries to pull them upwards with one arm too, the other still tight around Kara's waist, and Lena is sure it's just the force of the water, but she thinks she feels Kara's arm settle against her, thinks she can feel her trying to hold onto her too.

The edges of her vision begin to blur, but she can feel it, just the faintest hint of the sunlight above her, just out of reach, and then, as suddenly as she had been pulled down, she feels herself comes to the surface, feels her arm stretching up out of the water, her head emerging for a split second — gasping for breath, for the air that had been absent too long from her lungs before she turns over onto her back, pulling Kara up with her. And she wishes just for a second that she had time to just breathe, to just feel the sun on her face. But Kara is still bleeding, still broken. She pulls Kara onto her so that she is lying on top of her, arms wrapping around her as if that alone could keep her together. 

She can feel the desperation of her own chest moving up and down as she tries to catch her breath, thinks she must imagine it when she feels Kara's start to do the same, but then she hears her take in a sudden ragged breath, and it's raspy, and she can hear the water that rattles in her lungs, but it's the most beautiful sound she thinks she's ever heard.

And then finally, finally, the feeling of falling stops.

She closes her eyes and lets the water push them gently back and forth as her teeth rattle. She knows Alex is on her way. Knows she just has to keep them both floating here just a little longer. Is thankful for the sun that is doing little to keep her warm, but everything to help her keep Kara alive.

And when she hears Kara's voice again, hears her whisper, "Thank you, thank you for saving me," with her head cradled softly against her chest, she cries; she cries because she realizes what she couldn't admit to before, that in saving Kara she had finally saved a part of herself as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, let me know what you all think! Also thanks to everyone else in the Tumblr crowd to added their own wonderful takes to this art, I encourage you to check them out and also read through the tags which are all kinds of amazing. I don't know what it was but we all woke up and chose to embrace the angst this week. 
> 
> As always Kudos and comments are always welcome and very much appreciated so you can yell at me in the box below or over on Tumblr @vox-ex.


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